Review Escargot Kart

Escargot Kart for Android is easily one of the most frustrating games that I think I’ve ever played, and not just on a phone but in general, too. It’s a game that claims to be the original stunt kart action platfomer, but that’s not only a claim I don’t think they can make, it’s one they don’t really deserve.

So the idea is that you’ve got these open levels that have things you can collect scattered about it. There are coins and stars, but you have to collect all three stars in each level before the time runs out in order to make it to the next level. To do that, you’ll have to utilize springs, rockets, and parachutes,

Of course, the game doesn’t actually tell you any of this. In the beginning, you’ll think these are skills that you would need to purchase in order to actually utilize on a regular basis, but that’s not true. Now, in theory, this all sounds really fun. The stars are placed in ways that make you really need to think about how you’re going to grab them, but the physics system doesn’t uphold its end of the bargain. What do I mean by that? It makes the game incredibly hard. Launching too fast off a ramp might cause you to have too much forward momentum leaving your to smash face first into the ground, or you randomly might not have enough jump for seemingly no reason.

The real killer is that if you crash once then you have to totally redo the entire level. So you’ve gotta be incredibly precise and lucky to nail everything. But the game lets you be anything but that.

Escargot Kart has a fantastic premise, but the execution is nothing but a flop. If the physics and controls can be re-tuned then this game has a chance of being fun, but now it’s just downright frustrating.